UTM students may soon find themselves collaborating with classmates more than 10,000 kilometres away. At EAIE Glasgow 2026, the Technical University of Moldova began talks with the Universidad de Cartagena in Colombia on a partnership built around virtual exchange.
The plan is to start with online projects, guest lectures and joint coursework. Students from both universities would spend several weeks working together in mixed teams, in English, on topics relevant to both sides – learning along the way what it takes to collaborate across cultures and time zones.
To me, this is what internationalisation is really about. Students stop just learning about the world and start working with it.
The conversation with Cartagena started at an event on Colombian higher education, hosted with support from ICETEX, CCYK, ProColombia and the Colombian Embassy in the UK. It is also UTM’s first step towards partnerships in Latin America, giving students and staff a window into ways of teaching and learning outside Europe.
Pojar attended the conference with Cristina Diaconu, Head of International Project Management. UTM exhibited as part of the joint “Study in Romania and Republic of Moldova” stand, backed by the National Council of Rectors of Romania, which gave the team a base for meeting universities, international organisations and prospective partners throughout the week.
Pojar also joined the speaker panel for session S3.15, “Cooperation with the Western Balkans, Moldova and Ukraine: From capacity building to future Erasmus+ association,” where she talked about how UTM has grown its international presence through student and staff mobility, capacity-building projects, joint programmes and university partnerships.
Back in Chișinău, the team is now following up with the institutions it met in Glasgow and working out which areas and activities to pursue first.
We won't judge EAIE by the number of business cards we came home with. What matters is how many of those conversations turn into real opportunities for our students and staff over the coming months.
Held from 8 to 11 September at the Scottish Event Campus under the theme “The Rhythm of Revolution,” EAIE 2026 brought together higher education professionals from around the world for sessions, meetings and exhibitions focused on international cooperation.
